Uploaded on 2015-12-15 by NMarzian

eCity – A Platform Approach to Participatory Urban Planning ------------------------------- ![eCity – A Platform Approach to Participatory Urban Planning][1] **The Four Levels of a Democratic Decision Process** -1- The fundament of all cities are its people, the *citizens*. In a democracy they hold a share of the decisions made on the political level, because they have the right and also the duty to vote. Additionally, they have some sort of a say on the grassroots level, when they are given the opportunity to express their views and partly decide on predefined and preselected concepts, coming from experts and being filtered top-down through the governing as well as bureaucratic layer. *eCity*, as it occurs to me, makes use of democratic decision-making and even widens its scope, by letting the citizens – who are major stakeholders of the cities in which they live and work – become *Citizen Design Scientists* and directly contribute to the making of concepts as collaborators, side by side with experts, political and regulatory entities. Citizen Design Scientists are groups of different people with different thoughts, social, materialistic and other backgrounds, education, experience, and to sum it up in a word that I find the most evident: competences. They are encouraged to bring in those different and complementary backgrounds and competences, but also to express their personal needs, sorrows, hardships, and not least visions. This way the urban/city development is brought back to eye level of the cities' "users", instead of leaving it completely to some possibly detached theorists and revenue-driven strategists with their bird's-eye perspective and too often overly industrialised thinking. -2- All citizens (including experts and politicians) form *Decision Groups (DG)*, following their interests, abilities, professions, and their will to contribute to certain topics of urban/city design and planning. In general everybody can participate in any and as many decision groups as he or she likes. There is no theoretical limit. But, not everybody necessarily has the same voting weight on every topic addressed. Depending on what I mentioned above, namely competence, one has more or less influence on decisions to be made. Of course there will come up a multitude of decisions at which all naturally have the same weight of vote. Where the level of competence is essential for the voting power, participants with less of it are not discriminated, though. eCity grants everybody access to educational programmes, knowledge sources, subject-specific networks, and practical learning situations, to enable him or her to enhance that very voting power. With growing experience the vote gains weight also, which includes job experience, private engagements and the participation in the decision groups itself. Democratic equality is not centred directly on the vote, but on the free and supported access to improve it. -3- eCity is a web-based solution that has to be *open and accessible equally to all citizens*, eligible to vote (which could of course easily include minors with their particular views, ideas, and other contributions). Here they get information on upcoming or running projects and processes, like strategy, ideation, conception, design, debate, decision-making, ongoing development, etc., and can give their input as well as votes, depending on, what they are engaged in. They see how much effect they would have, when voting, and get suggestions, how to increase their competence and thereby their impact on shaping the outcome. Principles of Gamification might add to the overall experience and call to action. Of course, there have to be instances of control and regulations that take care of securing equality, fairness, ecological and economical sustainability, scientific findings, and the rules that a society has agreed on. A *Control Instance* is defending fundamental regulatory definitions, so it can acknowledge, request modifications of, or stop decisions whenever necessary. Another instance of control are *media and press* who report about the ongoing events, moderate the processes and take care of match making, i.e. bringing together possible competent groups of people. -4- On the last level stand *Expert Elects* that do not have any governing power, besides contributing to decision groups and giving their votes. Those elects are representatives towards e.g. body corporates like companies and other institutions, or district, provincial, state and national governments. They are allowed to take part in political events, negotiate and decide – following the scopes of action as defined by the related decision groups – as well as discuss results and follow-up with their peers, before proceeding with negotiations and making further decisions. Expert elects would probably be assigned for longer terms, similar to legislative periods, to be available and act as steady contact partners in longterm developments. An Example for Possible Improvements of Urban/City Design and Planning through Making Use of a Citizen Design Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I will keep this as brief as possible after the long part above, but probably there is not much to be said anyways about the example that I have in mind. After having lived there myself for several years and having seen a big part of the developments first-hand, this example is the beautiful, and really amazing City of Hamburg, in the north of Germany. And in particular I have in mind the development of the so called "HafenCity" (meaning "HarbourCity"), including the infamous "Elbphilharmonie" (or "Elbe Philharmonic Hall" in English). Though, most certainly countless of similar examples can be found on every continent. The presented issues are a recapitulation of memorised discussions that I followed. Some general information about Hamburg's greatest development project can be found at the very bottom. ![Hamburg – HafenCity and Elbphilharmonie][2] Hamburg – HafenCity and Elbphilharmonie While big parts of Hamburg's citizenry stood and probably in principle still stand behind this huge set of projects, much has been done wrong or at least suboptimal on the decision-makers' levels. **What Hamburg – in my understanding – wanted to have:** - A modern waterfront district standing for "Germany's Gate to the World", being most positive inspiration for other cities, also in other countries - A sustainable and resilient urban area that is for all people from all walks of life equally - A balanced mix of different types of buildings and infrastructure defined by today's living and working situation - A centre full of life and inviting to feel home - Building projects that are economically and ecologically reasonable - An incubator for thriving and leading culture - Interconnection between residential, work-related, economical, educational, governmental fields, consumption, leisure, recreation, tourism spaces, and similar - Integration of people - Design and planning with sense, and based on rational, competent processes **Some of the problems Hamburg then had and still has, but could have avoided with bottom-up – instead of top-down – decision-making through transparent, participatory Citizen Design Science, and making use of the great initial enthusiasm and support from Hamburg's patriotic, creative citizens, amongst them innumerable experts on important aspects to address:** - Ever-increasing delay, exploding costs, and many avoidable construction errors, especially in terms of planning and building the "Elbphilharmonie" - Dissent by students, faculty, and neighbourhood of the University of Hamburg due to the forced try to move it from its original place to the HafenCity, seemingly more as a (political) matter of prestige as based on an understandable need-oriented, value-added-driven concept - Streets that often appear to be without life - Lack of vegetation and animal life (e.g. birds), coming with the effect of mosquito and spider invasions - Unaffordable living space for most, underrepresentation of most strata of society - Overcapacity in terms of office space, not solving enough of Hamburg's undercapacity of living quarters - Fear for the neighbouring "Speicherstadt" ("City of Warehouses"), its future meaning, and a possible negative impact on its traditional substance Please, let me make it clear that there are a lot of good aspects about the HafenCity also, and I enjoyed being there and that my then employer offered me a nice office in this part of the city. Neither do I think that this project necessarily has to turn out as a failure in the end. Hamburg's HafenCity surely is an inspiration for many, and groups of architects and urban designers and planners did and do not come and have a close look without a reason. I think that it is not only the mistakes to learn from here, but also from the great ideas. Nevertheless, by deeply integrating citizens, for which this district was meant to be, better decisions could have been made, problems and obstacles avoided, realisation time reduced, and outcome improved. While a search through German media and press delivers countless of results that go much more into detail than I could, here is a selection of general articles, papers, and official information on "Hamburg HafenCity" and "Elbphilharmonie": - Official Website – [http://www.hafencity.com/en/home.html][3] - Paper – "HafenCity Hamburg – Identity, Sustainability and Urbanity" – [http://www.hafencity.com/upload/files/files/DP_Identity__Sustainability_and_Urbanity_final.pdf][4] - Der Spiegel – "Hamburg's New Quarter: The Challenge of Making HafenCity Feel Neighborly" – [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/hamburg-s-new-quarter-the-challenge-of-making-hafencity-feel-neighborly-a-714008.html][5] - Mother Nature Network – "Welcome to HafenCity -- Germany's crazy ambitious urban redesign project" – [http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/welcome-to-hafencity-germanys-crazy-ambitious-urban-redesign-p][6] - Euroviews – "Green living on the waterfront in Hamburg" – [http://www.euroviews.eu/2012/?p=187][7] - World Changing – "HafenCity: A Case Study on Future-Adaptive Urban Development" – [http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011536.html][8] - Paper – "The Elbphilharmonie-Project in discussion: critical voices from Hamburg A short insight into the current local debate" – [http://www.iau.usp.br/revista_risco/Risco15-pdf/07_cor03b_risco15.pdf][9] - Dezeen – "Completion in sight for Herzog & de Meuron's £617-million Elbphilharmonie concert hall" – [http://www.dezeen.com/2015/01/13/completion-in-sight-herzog-de-meuron-617-million-elbphilharmonie-concert-hall/][10] [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14484551644237868.jpg [2]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14484561069051301.jpg [3]: http://www.hafencity.com/en/home.html [4]: http://www.hafencity.com/upload/files/files/DP_Identity__Sustainability_and_Urbanity_final.pdf [5]: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/hamburg-s-new-quarter-the-challenge-of-making-hafencity-feel-neighborly-a-714008.html [6]: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/welcome-to-hafencity-germanys-crazy-ambitious-urban-redesign-p [7]: http://www.euroviews.eu/2012/?p=187 [8]: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011536.html [9]: http://www.iau.usp.br/revista_risco/Risco15-pdf/07_cor03b_risco15.pdf [10]: http://www.dezeen.com/2015/01/13/completion-in-sight-herzog-de-meuron-617-million-elbphilharmonie-concert-hall/